Mobile medical care, including dentistry, was once the norm, as practitioners moved from place to place providing their services in “house calls” or even in the street. As dental practices improved and specialized tools were introduced, the model turned to offices, with specialized equipment and staff, where patients were seen by appointment. This office model limited access to dental care to people who could travel to the office and wait to be seen. For many people in need of dental care, this model imposed insurmountable obstacles. In particular, the poor, elderly, workers, and children faced difficulties in traveling to a dental office, waiting to be treated, and taking time from work or school. In 2000, a report by the U.S. Surgeon General called dental disease a “silent epidemic”, for which lack of access to care, especially to low income children, was a significant factor. See http://www.nidcr.nih.gov/DataStatistics/SurgeonGeneral/Report/ExecutiveSummary.htm.
In recent years, mobile dentistry has gained popularity. Early applications of mobile modern dentistry focused on efforts to provide dental screening and sometimes preventative care to under served populations by hosting clinics set up in school gyms and community centers. The use of vehicles, such as buses, converted to mobile dental centers, was adopted and this model has predominated the field of mobile dentistry. Such vehicles often include, apart from the vehicle's controls and power train, multiple treatment rooms, a sterilization area, a staff restroom, as well as compressed air systems, power generators, fresh and waste water systems, wheelchair lifts, lighting systems, and heating and air-conditioning systems. These mobile dentistry vehicles seek to replicate a dentist's office and are large, expensive, and require substantial space to locate and time to set up.
Some of the basic problems that mobile dentistry can best solve are not always addressed by these mobile dentist offices. For example, some patients, often elderly patients who cannot move far, if at all, are still not reached. Also, these centers are set up in central locations, but even these may not succeed in reaching many under served populations. For some patients, an on-site visit is the best, or only, means of providing dental care. For such persons, on-site mobile dental services could provide dental care that would otherwise be impossible or very difficult to obtain.
In addition to providing dental care to under served populations, demand has increased for on-site dental services to people traditionally served by dental office visits. Such patients may lack the time, owing to work demands, to travel to a dentist's office and wait to be seen. For such patients, a system of on-site dental services would result in more frequent and efficient dental care.
On-site mobile dentistry is hindered by the specialized equipment needed to hold a patient in a position best suited to the examination of the patient's teeth by the dentist or dental care provider. Dental care can be performed while a patient is sitting in a chair or lying on a bed. This is often the only practical way to provide dental care can be provided to elderly patients who cannot leave a care facility or home. However, a chair or a bed will not hold the patient in a comfortable position for the patient or a good position for the dentist to see and work on the patient's teeth. Chairs and beds are too low for the dentist to perform services without bending over in a highly uncomfortable and stressful position. Performing dental services on a daily basis from an awkward bent position leads to harmful, chronic back pain. In addition, chairs that do not recline and stay in different tilted positions do not hold a patient in a comfortable position to receive dental work, nor is the position conducive to the dentist's performance of dental services. In particular, elderly patients sometimes have trouble swallowing when seated in an upright chair.
In addition to the need for a dental chair, dentistry requires very good lighting, so that the dentist can see the patient's teeth, even the teeth far back in the mouth. Dental offices and large mobile dental vehicles are equipped with specialized dental lamps that can provide proper lighting by which dental work can be performed. Such dental lamps are heavy and often mounted to walls within reach of the dental chair or to a dental chair secured to the floor. For on-site mobile dentistry, conventional home, school, community residence, or other such lighting does not illuminate a patient's teeth adequately, even if the light is directed into a patient's mouth. Small lights, such as dental headlamps, are sometimes used, but these are not capable of providing the lighting a dental lamp can provide. Similarly, light-weight, portable, sometimes battery-powered, LED dental floor lamps are available, but these still fail to provide the illumination of larger dental lamps. In addition, these light-weight lamps stand on flimsy, outwardly extending legs and pose a tripping hazard to the patient and dental staff. Also, these light-weight lamps are prone to falling over, owing to their light weight and unbalanced, relatively top heavy configuration.
Needed is an on-site mobile dental care system that provides a mobile dental chair capable of reclining and elevating a patient into a comfortable position from which a dentist or dental care provider can perform services optimally. Such an on-site mobile dental chair should be easily transportable to various locations, such as a patient's home, residence facility, or community facility, and capable of elevating and reclining a patient into a position from which the dentist or dental care provider can comfortably perform dental services. Also needed is an on-site mobile dentistry system that can provide a mobile dental lamp capable of providing substantial, directed illumination of a patient's teeth. Such an on-site mobile dental lamp should be easily transportable to various locations where dental services will be rendered, and also be stable and not pose a tripping hazard to the patient, dentist, dental care provider, staff, or other persons present.